Youth teaching children

In a Church School setting it is easy to recruit older youth to be teachers, but it helps to do so with care. Some considerations:

• Talk to the high school teacher if there is one. Don't blind-side them by taking their students away
• Select carefully. Just as with adults, some are gifted in this way and others are not. If you need to use those who aren't gifted, recruit them for some other activity perhaps even being your personal go-fer, supply cabinet supervisor, media specialist...
• Give them training. Depending on the situation this can vary. It may be a teacher training session, it may be serving as an assistant to a skilled teacher. (Be sure to talk to this teacher in advance and convince them to start turning some of the teaching assignments over to the youth, working toward the time the youth does the whole lesson from beginning to end, including planning and evaluation.)
• Except in the most extreme cases all teachers should be a part of a team of teachers/leaders, but an all youth team is acceptable as long as they are competent.